in the next 2 weeks i’m finishing my degree and attempting to wrap up like 18 months of lab work on a project that never seems to end. it’s been cold and gloomy all through april up until the last few days, and my boyfriend is writing exams in law school right now, so i’ve been redirecting all my stress and nervous energy and general malaise towards cooking and baking for us. i’ve been trying to save everything i make in my notes app with my notes on what i changed, because otherwise i forget what kinds of fairly simple meals (but still satisfying to make and eat) i actually enjoy cooking.

i know this is different than what i’ve posted in the past, but i kind of want to start using this site a bit more casually, and i especially want to write more this summer because i will be unemployed and spending a month in berlin (something that no 23 year old has ever done before!!!) before i start a master’s degree in the fall. because i should really be writing my thesis or logging a few hours of behavioural coding right now, here’s a round-up of the (relatively low-effort) recipes i’ve had on repeat that are keeping me sane, and my notes on them:

for dinner

soy glazed chicken thighs and eggplant

this is something you could probably make with whatever vegetable you have in the fridge but i’ve been on an eggplant kick

sauce: 4 tbsp tamari (or light soy sauce), 2 tsp ginger (fresh if you have), 2 tsp brown sugar, 4 cloves garlic (minced), 1-2 ish tbsp sesame oil, like 2 tsp of fish sauce if you have it on hand

chicken

1. coat chicken thighs with flour, garlic powder, pepper + salt on both sides

2. pan fry in olive oil for 5 ish minutes on every side until very crispy and golden brown - they don’t have to be fully cooked through at this point

3. add around 1/2 of the sauce and let simmer, covered, for 10-15 mins until fully cooked, turning thighs over periodically to get them completely covered in the sauce

4. add a bit of water as needed

eggplant

1. slice eggplant into flat strips and salt (if you want), let rest while chicken cooks

2. heat up olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat

3. cut eggplant into small-ish cubes and pan fry for 10 ish minutes until soft and browned

4. add the rest of the sauce and coat until thickened

serve with green onions + sesame seeds on white rice! i also did a just eggplant, no protein version of this after getting home from a conference where i got my period while giving a 15 min talk and free-bleeding in my new sezane pants, so not in a mood to cook meat, and i forgot that you’re allowed to top things with a fried egg. which would have been so good. don’t make my mistakes

marry me-ish chicken and pasta

this is the only recipe i’ve made from instagram reels that isn’t from the loml justine snacks. everyone freaked out about how much heavy cream i was threatening to add so i did something kind of different but it still turned out delicious. this is the reel that has the full recipe. i basically did the same thing, but my notes are:

• i used way less cream (like maybe 1/3 cup max)

• sauce turned out gorgeous and glossy BUT very very rich

• next time i would try doing this with some tomato paste to give it a bit more of an acidic kick and thicken up the sauce a bit - it wasn’t as thick without all the cream, but it would have been insanely heavy because this is already a super rich, flavourful sauce on its own

• this def needs to be served with big ass noodles!!!

i was going to make this for my boyfriend’s birthday, but i always feel really guilty about cooking with meat in his apartment kitchen that he shares with 2 normal people, and he’s also more of a tofu kind of guy (NON-DEROGATORY)

marry me tofu (soy citrus gochujang tofu)

a certified justine snacks classic: recipe here. the first time i made it my boyfriend loved it so much he asked me to make it again the next night, and whenever he hints that he wants this for dinner i’m like okay park slope baby…

by the way you really don’t have to press extra-firm tofu to get it to turn out crispy and perfect, just lightly press it with paper towel to get rid of excess moisture. i do this basically exactly the same as justine’s recipe, other than:

• i don’t cook orange slices into it. i just use the juice of the whole orange for the sauce

• and because of that i don’t add any brown sugar to the sauce - it really doesn’t need it!

• this works with any vegetable but i love sautéing zucchini after i fry the tofu and just drizzling a bit of sauce on top. honestly this is such a perfect recipe. justine snacks i love you

shakshouka

enough said. use any shakshouka recipe on the internet or follow your heart. i posted this on twitter and someone replied saying they always burn the tomatoes?? how is that even possible??? and also like 15 other people were like wow this looks like shakshouka what is it? WHAT DO YOU THINK???

before you say eggs in this economy please understand that 1. eggs are still normal price here and 2. my boyfriend and i both got eggs without discussing beforehand and i’m the only one who eats eggs for breakfast so we had to use them up by making shakshouka.

alison roman’s caramelized shallot pasta

this has also been on repeat for us and it’s really fun for me because every time i get to explain again to my boyfriend who alison roman is and why she got cancelled (boyfriend asked: do you have any other non-woke opinions i should know about?) here is the recipe and here are my notes:

• honestly topping this with parsley kind of sucked. i think J liked it and usually i like parsley but it just didn’t work with this

• you definitely don’t need that much olive oil. there’s something about nyt cooking recipes that always call for like 3x as much olive oil as you really need, and i feel like maybe we need an investigative piece about the connection between nyt and the olive oil industry? no?

• i also think it’s insane that this recipe asks you to make 2x shallot sauce just to save some. just make half if you don’t feel like chopping 6 shallots

• i also make this without the anchovies because my boyfriend is so anti-fish that i think he actually would notice, but it’s probably way better with anchovies lol

more chicken recipes

in the last couple months i’ve decided i want to get better at cooking with meat, which i rarely do because i just don’t like handling raw meat and i’m scared of poisoning everyone. i love fish and vegetarian proteins and i don’t eat a lot of meat in general, but eating lentil stew every day was beginning to seriously affect my mood. here are a few chicken recipes i’ve really loved making recently:

pierre franey’s chicken breasts with lemon (recipe) (archive link)

my notes: don’t need to use butter for the sauce, do need to use more lemon, simmer chicken in the sauce, covered, for like 5 mins

alison roman’s garlicky chicken thighs with scallion and lime (recipe) (archive link)

my boyfriend said this was genuinely the best home cooked chicken he’s ever had, and he’s italian so i consider this high praise. the recipe desperately needs some tweaks but otherwise it’s delicious. my notes:

• you absolutely have to strain out the fat after cooking the chicken thighs, otherwise the sauce will be greasy and disgusting imo

• rough chop the scallions instead of adding in whole scallions (also i don’t add the roots because that doesn’t sit right with me, but maybe it’s great???)

• USE DRY WHITE WINE INSTEAD OF WATER (or chicken/vegetable broth)

• you actually don’t need to add the whole head of garlic she calls for, but if you do, squeeze the cooked garlic into the sauce instead of throwing it away (????)

nargisse benkabbou’s weeknight chicken tagine (recipe) (archive link)

i don’t have any notes for this one. it was great!

for dessert

copycat irish soda bread scones

for months i’ve been seeing instagram reels (sorry!) about mary o’s irish soda bread shop in NYC, and if anyone is willing to host my boyfriend and i in august (wilco and bob dylan are on tour, which has basically been our main topic of conversation for a while) i might get to visit. this is nea arentzen’s copycat soda bread scone recipe, which is such a godsend and i’ve been making it on repeat. for years i was making this scone recipe from our old nyt cookbook, but they were… lacking. these are perfect, and you do have to make them in a muffin tin, and i just have a few notes:

• instead of 2/3 buttermilk + 2/3 heavy cream, i do more like 1 + 1/3 buttermilk and 1/3 heavy cream

• i also use more like 50g sugar, because these turn out super sweet otherwise - i don’t personally like a sweet scone, and i found that halving the sugar didn’t affect how these turned out at all other than cutting the sweetness a bit

world’s best oatmeal cccs

like everyone else, i’ve spent years trying to perfect my oatmeal cookie recipe, and this recipe puts my efforts to shame. no notes. i’ve also made it by browning 1/2 of the butter and toasting the oats for a deeper, nuttier flavour, but it’s honestly great as is. love having this in the freezer when i’m experiencing 3pm malaise. this time i toasted some sesame seeds and rolled the dough in them just before baking. (depends on your oven but for mine these need to be baked way longer than the recipe calls for - they will still be gooey when you take them out but they just need to cool for a few minutes)

lemon pistachio olive oil cake

my boyfriend makes the most wonderful lemon coffee cake from his grandmother’s recipe, so i was super scared of attempting something similar, and i also honestly never bake cakes (i find them intimidating for no reason). for his birthday last week, i wanted to do a pistachio olive oil coffee cake, and this recipe was perfect. i don’t usually make recipes from sites i don’t know without testing them first, but this honestly came out perfect as a last-minute birthday cake. i also needed something with minimal components so i could transport it in my friend’s van with all my gear because my band was also playing a show that night. (feeling very my weekend as a 23-year-old in toronto, in a bad way)

notes: obviously make this with olive oil, if you make it in a bundt pan just bake it for twice as long or until a toothpick comes out clean, and for the icing i actually didn’t add any heavy cream because i wanted it to be thick and not too sweet (and i added a bit of matcha for the colour lol) and it was just so good

that’s all from me! if you want to read more casual posts about cooking, baking, travel, reading, my research and academic work, my life, etc please let me know! and if you don’t, also let me know i guess…